The following is a local copy of the original file:
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/roadmap/histories/0457/0457toc.html
This section, on Dr. John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D.,
"covers Gofman's research at the University of California,
Berkeley; his pioneering studies in heart disease; his
founding and directing of Lawrence Livermore's biomedical
program; his conflicts with the Atomic Energy
Commission; and the evolution and controversy of his
opinions on radiation risk."

n
December 1993, U.S. Secretary of Energy Hazel R. O'Leary announced her
Openness Initiative. As part of this initiative, the Department of Energy
undertook an effort to identify and catalog historical documents on radiation
experiments that had used human subjects. The Office of Human Radiation
Experiments coordinated the Department's search for records about these
experiments. An enormous volume of historical records has been located. Many of
these records were disorganized; often poorly cataloged, if at all; and
scattered across the country in holding areas, archives, and records centers.

The Department has produced a roadmap to the large universe of pertinent
information: Human Radiation Experiments: The Department of Energy Roadmap
to the Story and the Records (DOE/EH-0445, February 1995). The collected
documents are also accessible through the Internet World Wide Web under
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/. The passage of
time, the state of existing records, and the fact that some decisionmaking
processes were never documented in written form, caused the Department to
consider other means to supplement the documentary record.

In September 1994, the Office of Human Radiation Experiments, in
collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, began an oral history project
to fulfill this goal. The project involved interviewing researchers and others
with firsthand knowledge of either the human radiation experimentation that
occurred during the Cold War or the institutional context in which such
experimentation took place. The purpose of this project was to enrich the
documentary record, provide missing information, and allow the researchers an
opportunity to provide their perspective.

Thirty audiotaped interviews were conducted from September 1994 through
January 1995. Interviewees were permitted to review the transcripts of their
oral histories. Their comments were incorporated into the final version of the
transcript if those comments supplemented, clarified, or corrected the contents
of the interviews.

The Department of Energy is grateful to the scientists and researchers who
agreed to participate in this project, many of whom were pioneers in the
development of nuclear medicine.

DISCLAIMER

The opinions expressed by the interviewee are his own and do not necessarily
reflect those of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Department neither endorses
nor disagrees with such views. Moreover, the Department of Energy makes no
representations as to the accuracy or completeness of the informa-tion provided
by the interviewee.